


Get Out of the Wishing Well

by NortheasternWind



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: (ineffectually), ...kind of, Friendship, Gen, he reacts exactly as you would expect, i must write fanfic of every single character dragging reaper to the good side, widowmaker is the one with her head screwed on straight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-25 17:19:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7541314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NortheasternWind/pseuds/NortheasternWind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Widowmaker and Reaper have a friendly chat, or: in which Widowmaker defects to Overwatch first and attempts to drag Reaper along behind her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Get Out of the Wishing Well

For such an annoying girl, Oxton was surprisingly persuasive.

Peace and happiness were such distant memories that Widowmaker knew them only by name; quiet moments or a noise that was nothing like the music of battle. She had no way of knowing what any of it felt like beyond what others had told her, only that people seemed to chase it even to their own destruction, and so she’d concluded that happiness was as out of her reach as every other emotion.

 _But you get irritated, don’t you?_ Tracer had asked, as though they weren’t locked in a firefight. _And you feel incredible when you win, right? That feeling in your chest—that’s emotion, love._

That was a long time ago, and the words had gone in one ear and out the other then.

But as the defeats began to pile up, as the thrill of victory became more and more distant in her memory, Widowmaker had no choice but to consider certain… unsavory options.

She lived for the moment of the kill, happily bore whatever burdens Talon placed upon her in exchange for it. Without it there was no reason to live, but that suited her just fine: such was her skill that almost any failure was due only to her own negligence, a variable she had perfect control over.

But even she couldn’t do everything alone; much success required a team effort, and Overwatch was simply too coordinated, too close. No amount of skill on Widowmaker’s part would ever change the fact that Talon agents were incompetent, knew not when to take advantage of the openings she gave them. Nothing Widowmaker could do would earn her what she craved.

Talon had nothing to offer her. It was time to leave.

But let it not be said that Widowmaker was hasty or short-sighted, or otherwise not thorough in her decisions. She had a loose end to clear up first.

The detonation of her poison mine announced the arrival of her guest; they were on the roof of the facility, where few would hear them and escape was only a grappling hook away. With deliberate steps she crossed the distance between them, dragged the stunned Reaper out of the doorway so she could lock it behind him.

“What is this?!” he demanded through sputtering breaths, smoke coming off him in wisps.

“It is exactly what I told you,” she said, backing a safe distance away. Even wracked with poison, Reaper was far from helpless. “I simply wanted to have a friendly chat, that’s all.”

“Your manners could use some work,” he grumbled. “Is this chat going to end with a bullet in my head?”

“That will depend on you. No, Reaper, I just don’t want you running off before our conversation is over.”

Reaper snarled, but the effect was somewhat mitigated by the fact that he was crouched on the ground clutching at his chest. Widowmaker took a second to admire how ineffectual his anger was before speaking again:

“I am defecting to Overwatch,” she said simply, “and I believe you should do the same.”

Reaper went stock-still, so shocked that he was apparently unable to produce his usual dramatics.

“ _What?_ ” he asked incredulously instead.

“I live only for the thrill of victory,” she explained, “and our victories have been few and far between of late. Overwatch has changed, grown stronger, and it will be a long time before Talon can give me what I want. So I have no choice but to leave.”

Reaper laughed, a high, rasping sound not at all resembling the one he usually employed to menace and frighten his enemies. “Oh, good, I was worried you’d become some kind of girl scout. They’ll never accept an assassin like you into their ranks.”

“I wouldn’t be their first assassin and you know it,” she said, somewhat amused. “You said it yourself: they are boy scouts and children, and in desperate need of manpower besides. I am certain to be welcomed, and I care not how grudgingly.”

“You’re a fool if you think they’ll let you kill the way you do now.”

Widowmaker’s lips curled into a cruel smile. “Even Overwatch has enemies that need killing, Reaper. You’ve seen it for yourself.”

“They can’t win every battle.”

“Neither can we. And who knows?” she said, thinking of Lena Oxton’s smile, undimmed no matter the irreparable damage done to her life. “Perhaps I will find something other than victory with them.”

This time Reaper’s laugh was genuine, though it descended into a curse and a coughing fit: Widowmaker had taken the opportunity to lob another poison mine at him, and for a moment he sputtered in incoherent rage.

“Do it, then! But you won’t drag me with you. I’ll never return to Overwatch.”

So he was a former Overwatch agent, just as the rumors suggested. Widowmaker filed the information away for later. “Not for logic, no. You are ruled by emotion, by rage and petty spite, and so it must be emotion which brings you back.”

Slowly she began to circle him, rifle held at the ready. “You crave respect and recognition. You need it. Do you think you will find these things if Overwatch continues to best you?”

Reaper snarled. “I don’t give a damn who respects me, as long as I get to watch those ingrates burn.”

“You will accomplish neither if the situation continues in this manner. Isn’t it infuriating,” she asked with a smile, “to be surrounded by incompetents? Wouldn’t you rather work with those who excel at their duties because they enjoy it, who follow your orders and do it well because they respect you?”

“You know nothing about me,” he spat.

“Maybe not. But whatever quarrel you have with Overwatch cannot possibly be worth the humiliation of defeat, the indignity of watching your esteem in the eyes of your comrades sink lower and lower. You can’t win every battle,” she said, throwing his own words back at him, “and so I suggest you begin choosing them more carefully.”

Reaper was trembling with rage, black mist wafting off his body in clouds thick enough to choke on.

“I will never go back,” he rasped. “I’ll kill every last one of them, and you too. I’ll die before I call them my friends again!”

So not just a former agent, but one close to upper management as well. “If indeed they ever considered you a friend—“

“They didn’t!”

“Then you have a very simple path to revenge, do you not? They are boy scouts, after all…” Guilt, she’d heard, was a pain worse than any bullet. “Consider it, won’t you? I think you’ll find Overwatch to be much more fulfilling than the life you lead now.”

“This _life_ ,” he spat the second word, “is all I have left.”

“Then you may wish to consider opening up your options. I’ll be waiting for you, Reaper, but until then—“

Reaper’s cells snapped back to order and he roared, diving for Widowmaker with claws outstretched. But she was faster; even at this short range, it took no effort at all to raise her rifle and plant a bullet in his skull, shattering it and rendering him unconscious until his unnatural body could do its work again.

“Adieu, cherie.”

What was it like, she wondered, to be so very dependent on emotion that you followed its urges to your own destruction? Reaper had nothing to gain and everything to lose by antagonizing Overwatch, and yet he needed its destruction like most needed air: clawing and biting at every attempt to keep him from it like a man drowning.

Emotion, Tracer had claimed, was as much a physical response as a mental one. Perhaps if she were bored enough, Widowmaker could have their doctors restore those responses in her and understand.

She spent one more moment looking down at Reaper with thinly veiled derision, then shouldered her rifle and fired her grappling hook. Her future was with Overwatch now, for better or for worse, and it wouldn’t do to linger in enemy territory any longer.


End file.
